Fellowship Awards for Projects in Green Technology Announced by the ESC and Toyota

Three winners were chosen by the ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship Selection Committee. They will receive $50,000 fellowship awards for projects in green energy technology. The awards went to: Dr. Ahmet Kusoglu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Professor Julie Renner, Case Western Reserve University; and Professor Shuhui Sun, Institut National de la Rechersche Scientifique (INRS).

This ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship, a partnership between the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA), a division of Toyota Motor North America, is now in its third year. A various pool of applicants consisting of young professors and scholars seeking creative electrochemical research in green energy technology responded to ECS’s demand for proposals.

“This fellowship gives the Society’s young investigators visibility and the freedom to explore uncharted areas,” says ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo. “Toyota’s continuing support is helping our scientists and engineers create a practical pathway to a renewable energy future.”

The main goal of the ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship is to encourage scholars and professors in seeking research in green energy technology. This research may promote the development of future generation vehicles which will be able to use alternative fuels.

The growth and improvement of innovative batteries, electrocatalysts, photovoltaics and fuel cells has already come from electrochemical research.

“We are excited to add three energetic and creative scholars to the ECS-Toyota Fellowship family, including our first winners from Canada and from the West Coast,” says Fellowship Chair and Senior Manager of Toyota’s North American Research Strategy Office, Paul Fanson. “This year’s topics run the gambit, from ideas that may impact the current design of fuel cell membranes to materials and design strategies for next generation electrocatalysts and electrolyzers. But, what all three winners have in common is their desire to make the world a better place through outside-the-box thinking, which is a mindset that they share with Toyota”

The selected ones will get restricted grants of a minimum of $50,000 to conduct the research which is defined in their proposals, within one year. They will also have the opportunity to publish or present their research with ECS.

The ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship is an annual program. The 2018-2019 requests for suggestions or ideas will be released in the fall of 2017.